Sunday, January 31, 2010

Eve Lists Los Angeles House

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Before we go on a wild tear about this house, Your Mama wants to make it clear that we don't have anything against Eve Jeffers, otherwise known as Eve. Beehawtcha has come a long ways from the streets of Philly where as a teenager she worked her stuff as Eve Destruction and even farther from the strip clubs of the Bronx where she once buh-jangled her bootylicious backside in order to make ends meet. Today, to her credit, she's a Grammy winning rapper/singer who successfully dabbles in the tee-vee (Eve) and movies (Barbershop, Barbershop 2, Whip It!). Most recently, Miss Eve smartly took a two episode arc as a deceitful glee club director on the gay, gay, gay, Glee program, a role that Whitney Houston rather foolishly turned down. So props where props are due.

Your Mama does not, however, feel quite so charitable towards the not particularly pretty Hollywood Hills house Miss Eve recently put on the market with an asking price of $2,295,000. According to property records, Miss Eve purchased her homely house in the hills of Hollywood in December of 2005 for $1,775,000. Records show that the three story residence, which shares a gated driveway with another, equally architecturally challenged house, measures 4,297 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 5 poopers.

The front door–which, the children will note, is also the back door–opens into what amounts to a really wide and really beige hallway with beige Travertine tile floors. At least we think that's Travertine. Straight ahead, stairs go up and stairs go down making this the central traffic hub for the house. Flanking the front door, a pair of floor to ceiling windows have beige curtain panels that are knotted at the bottom in what looks like it might be some half-assed effort to keep a cat from clawing the crap out of them or an attempt to keep the minimum wage cleaning gurl from carelessly sucking them up with the Hoover.

The Travertine tiles–or whatever they are–continue into the "formal" living room, which has a fireplace, a sienna colored ceiling, a couple of arched glass doors that open out to the itty-bitty backyard terrace area–which is, as best as we can ascertain, also the front yard–some equilibrium destabilizing angles and a couple of not particularly well placed windows. But the one thing in this living room that really stands out to Your Mama like a naked man at church are those long, beige curtain panels that–like those flanking the front/back door–have been knotted at the bottom. Oh, Eve. Hunny. No.

To the right of the front/back door and creating one long, narrow space that runs across the full width of the front/back of the house is the dining room where we find more of the Travertine tiles–or whatever they are–and more of those damn knotted curtain panels which are quickly becoming a rather upsetting decorative motif. We never thought something quite so, well, obvious would ever make it into Your Mama's big book of decorating dos and don'ts but sometimes, like all those jumpsuit wearing space explorers on Star Trek, Your Mama must go where no one has gone before. Henceforth Your Mama's decorating rule #1,041 succinctly declares that no curtain panels shall be knotted at the bottom. Ever. Period. End of Story. They can, we'll allow, be temporarily knotted if the carpets are getting cleaned, but once that shag is dry, those knots get immediately undone. Ih-meedy-uhtlee.

Now puppies, credit where credit is due in the dining room: Your Mama actually likes the idea of those three Balinese lanterns–or whatever they are–hanging above the table but we're more than a bit concerned with the execution. It surely would have been much better to spend a few dollars for a damn electrician to come over and install each lantern so it dangles from its own electric cord rather than have them all hanging off that wonky strip of wood–or whatever it is.

The beige Travertine tile floors and the all beige all the time color palette continues into the well equipped but perfectly ordinary upper end kitchen. There are beige and brown flecked granite counter tops, high grade stainless steel appliances, and honey colored cabinetry with flat fronts. Thank heavens for those flat fronted cabinets because Your Mama would have lost our damn minds iffin this kitchen had been done up with all manner of carved corbels, a dreaded pot rack, and a tile back splash depicting "Tuscany" or some other moronic scene. And let's be honest chickens, it could have been. We expected to find that. Be honest, didn't y'all too?

Thankfully, wood floors were installed in the tee-vee room instead of more of that Travertine–or whatever it is. Miss Eve has "decorated" the room with a large, party sized sectional sofa that wraps around a large coffee table and sits opposites a clunky and chunky corner cabinet that appears to house all the electronics and cable boxes. A rug might have been nice but it does not seem that Miss Eve cares for rugs because there's nary a one to be found in the whole house as far as we can see. Wait, actually we do see a bath mat in front of the terlit in the master pooper but that hardly qualifies as a rug.

The other thing we sadly spy in the master pooper is all that messy make-up crap cluttering up the twin vanities. Oh Eve. Sweet pea. Really? Let Your Mama offer you a simple but sage word of real estate advice: If you want to be selling your house in the Hollywood Hills for two million smackaroos or more–and it appears that you do–put all that damn make-up away right quick. Nobody–and that means no-body–wants to walk into a two million dollar master pooper to find a bunch of worn out lipsticks, mucked up make-up sponges and fugged up foundation bottles leaking all over the damn counter. Think about it gurl. Would you? Seriously, would you?

The front/back door opens to a small terrace that not only has two incompatible tile treatments but appears to be the only exterior space besides the wee balcony on the top floor. No grass. No swimming pool. No spa. No sunbathing nekkid. Nothing but the neighbors who can look down from their windows di-rectly into your front/back yard. Pity that.

Anyhoo, we don't know where Miss Eve plans on moving on to once she sells this pile, but we imagine it will be more private and we do so hope with every fiber of our decoratively sensitive soul that Gurl gets herself a nice, gay decorator to help her work out her new interior spaces and find a more suitable storage system for all her make-up in her next home. Listen Eve, hunny, if you need a few names of decorators, you just give Your Mama a ringy-dingy and we'll hook you up. Seriously. You deserve better than knotted curtain panels and we'd be happy to make a dee-ziner connection.

As any HGTV, Million Dollar Listing, or half a brain veiwer would know... staging IS everything. The pictures- put up by THE REALTOR with HIS name proudly on the edges- here- is at fault. Picture #1... 6 big high fallutin rubbish and assorted recyclables containers plainly in FRONT of the house. they sugar shouuuda have been rolled away BEFORE a picture was snapped or much been approved to be printed... Please must we go on here with the rest And please don't even mention that mess in the bathroom!.. Your Mama needs to get at that professional here for failing to see.. that ..this was his moment to shine..He knows how to address these messy homes before they see the light of day.Actors have no clue about the props..they just show up.

Unable to comprehend the extent of the ugliness of this house I got in my car and drove over to see it in person. And, unfortunately, the pictures make it look BETTER than it really is... What a waste for a very nice spot, nestled in the canyon.

I would have to venture a guess that the realtor took the photos, no self-respecting real estate photographer would haven't have put away the mess in the bathroom, hidden the trash cans, advised their client to call a gardner really quick for the weeds on the patio, and hidden some of the clutter on the living room coffee table.